Historically, toys have been and continue to be playthings for children of any age regardless of the child's circumstances, family, culture, or country. Toys often are models of commonplace things; and frequently appear as a miniature replica, or a gadget, or an instrument which provides at least amusement and pleasure (and sometimes education and inspiration as well) for a child.
Initially, all toys were stationary—i.e., the toy had no movable parts either internally or externally. Stationary toys could be relatively simple, such as carvings or sculptures formed of wood, stone, metal and clay which typically appeared as animals, landscapes, or tools/weapons in various sizes; or be quite complex in design such as anatomically correct dolls (male and female), tangible puzzle pieces designed to be fitted together as two-dimensional pictures, and exact scale models of buildings and towns.
With the rise and development of mathematics and engineering in the classical Egyptian, Greek and Roman, Moorish, and Chinese civilizations, more complex and some movable toys were created. These included movable replicas of ox carts, chariots, and sailing ships; games using sticks, dice, dominos, set pieces (such as for chess and checkers), and playing cards; working miniatures of stone throwing and wall piercing siege machines; reproductions of water-wheel turned or animal driven grinding mills ; and the first gravity driven and inertia powered mechanical toys.
Similarly, in the Early and Middle centuries of the 2nd Millennium (in the Common Era), liquid-filled glass balls having small movable castings and particles suspended within the liquid appeared; and different kinds of spring loaded and lever powered toys were built—usually for the pleasure and amusement of the children in the noble classes.
Later however, and certainly by the latter half of the 19th century in the common era, mechanical wind-up toys having one or more movable parts were commercially manufactured and sold as commonly obtainable articles both in the U.S. and abroad. Merely illustrating the range and variety of such mechanical wind-up toys are the following: U.S. Pat. Nos. 153,023; 189,010; 293,837; 327,303; 356,542; 644,805; 645,364; 819,580; 822,876; and 1,065,783.
Subsequently, and certainly by the mid to late 20th century, a variety of toys having internal moving parts powered by an electric source became popular. These electric powered toys are represented and exemplified by: U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,096,660; 4,457,101; 4,816,795; 5,129,852; 5,524,880; 5,364,298; 5,395,275; and 5,762,532. More recent developments and improvements for charging electrically powered toys are represented and described by U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,767,655; 6,575,809; 6,676,480; 6,762,586; 6,776,686; 6,913,507; 6,945,840; 6,957,996; 6,995,542; 7,030,592; 7,259,541; and 7,288,917.
More recently, with the advent of computers and miniaturized electric circuits in the late 1980's, a huge range and variety of electronic games and virtual reality play-stations become the most favored toys for a generation of children. Advertisements of these electronic games and play-stations are an everyday event and appear in almost every newspaper printed in the U.S.
In recent years, however, there has been a popular social movement urging a return to stationary and mechanically moving toys for children. This movement is due in no small part to the psychological phenomenon that a stationary toy or a mechanically movable toy markedly stimulates and develops the creative mind and imagination of a child far more than do electronic games or other visually-based toys. For substantially similar reasons, most children also seem to prefer playing with toys which can be physically grasped by the child or which have functions which are seen by the child as visible movable parts within the toy.